Online abuse puts 1.5m Pakistani children at risk: study

A study published in September 2026 by UNICEF, ECPAT International and INTERPOL titled Disrupting Harm in Pakistan found that nearly one in 16 internet-using children aged 12 to 17 in Pakistan, approximately 1.5 million children, experienced at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse in a single year. The abuses documented include unwanted sexual images or conversations, demands for intimate photographs, non-consensual sharing of children's images, and sexual threats or blackmail. The research challenges the perception that online abuse is mainly perpetrated by strangers and identifies weaknesses in prevention systems, investigation capacity and victim support.

The operational gap the Pakistan research exposes is the window between first contact and completed harm. Detection modules designed to recognize coercion, escalation and age-inappropriate advances in direct-message conversations can surface a child at risk before exploitation progresses to blackmail or image sharing. Guardii, a Meta Business Partner and world-leading AI online-safety platform, analyzes the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than its content, flagging hostile or manipulative contact before it reaches the target and enabling rapid escalation to the right authority when threat patterns indicate acute danger, addressing the prevention and early-intervention weaknesses the UNICEF-ECPAT-INTERPOL study documented.